Bible verse

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A Bible verse describes the smallest unit of a piece of text in the Bible . Each chapter is divided into an average of 26 verses. The main purpose is to be able to point to certain statements in the Bible so that readers can easily locate those statements. The longest chapter of the Bible in terms of verses is Psalm 119 with 176 verses, the shortest Psalm 117 with only two verses. In the original text of the Hebrew Bible , the shortest verses ( Ex 20.13–15  EU ) each have six letters in two words and are in the Ten Commandments ; the longest verse ( Est 8.9  EU ) has 193 letters in 43 words.

history

The division into verses was already fixed in writing for the Hebrew Bible by the Masoretes , who used a special symbol for the end of a verse ( Sof Pasuk ) as part of their accent system . For the New Testament, today's verse division goes back to the French theologian and publisher Robert Estienne (called Stephanus), who joined Calvinism in 1550 . In 1551 he numbered the text in his Bible editions consistently according to chapters and verses. As the chapter division, Estienne took over that of the Englishman Stephen Langton , who had rearranged the text in 1206 and replaced various older chapter systems; it had already become the standard by the time of Estienne. The further subdivision into verses was done by Estienne for the Old Testament from the Jewish tradition. With the entry of the logically resulting verse numbers in the printed Bible, he followed the example of the third Bomberg Rabbinical Bible from 1547-48 and the Latin translation of Pagninus published in 1527 . For the New Testament, Robert Estienne created the division himself.

In 1553 Estienne published a French Bible, which was the first complete Bible with the Bible verse division that is still used today. Due to its practical advantages, the new division of the New Testament was adopted by all denominations after some time.

In addition to the units “book”, “chapter” and “meaning section”, the Bible verse is used to structure the text and to clearly reference a passage. This is necessary because, in contrast to sources and references in other books, the number of pages depends on the language , translation and print edition . In addition, some biblical books differ in scope: Daniel and Esther contain some additions in the Greek translation (Septuagint) that were also retained in the Latin Bible (Vulgate) and thus in the Catholic Bible canon .

Similar to a verse in lyric texts, they can consist of a part of a sentence up to several sentences.

Various patterns are used to indicate a verse. Basically, the biblical book, chapter and verse are given.

The names of the biblical books differ from edition to edition, the most common for German versions is the naming according to the Loccumer guidelines .

Conventions for specifying a verse

This section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
See talk page.

Different spellings are used when giving verses. But mostly the following notation applies:

  • 1st position: Number of the biblical book if there are several parts under the same name.
This is the case with the following scriptures: Moses, Samuel, Kings, Maccabees, Chronicles, John (letters), Corinthians, Thessalonians, Timothy and Peter. If the name is written out in full, the number is preceded by a period and a space (e.g. 1st Book of Kings or 2nd Corinthians ). If only the name of the book is given in full and, above all, in an abbreviated form, no point follows the number (e.g. 1 Chronicle or 1 Sam ). However, a space should be placed between the number and the name. In practice - also in theological science - this is handled very inconsistently. It occurred thus both 1 John and 1 John on.
  • 2nd position: Name of the book
The name of the book is given according to the respective naming convention. If the specified chapter is in the same book as it is mentioned (e.g. in the case of cross-references), "Chapter" can be specified instead of the number and name of the book. The name can be abbreviated, but no period is written after the abbreviation (e.g. “Act” instead of “Acts of the Apostles” or “Cape” instead of “Chapter”). The name is followed by a space.
  • 3rd position: Number of the chapter
The number of the chapter is given, for the psalms the number of the psalm. For books that only consist of one chapter (Obadja, Philemon, 2-3 John, Jude), the chapter number is omitted.
  • 4th position: number of the verse
When not referring to entire chapters, the chapter number is followed by the verse number. Chapter and verse are separated from each other by a comma. In the English-speaking world, a colon is used for this.
  • 5th position: verse section
If only a part of the verse is referred to, a Latin lower case letter (a, b, ...) is sometimes added after the verse number without spaces. This information is only unambiguous in direct connection with the respective edition of the translation, for example as a footnote or when referenced in the comment section. Detached from this, one can only guess from the context that the front or back part of a verse is meant.
  • Notation to indicate multiple chapters or verses
If several chapters are given, their numbers are separated from each other with semicolons and spaces (e.g. Mt 5; 13 or 1 Thess 1,1; 5,28 ). If several verses are given, their numbers are written one after the other without spaces and with a point (e.g. Mt 5,3.5 or Jude 17.20 ). If several consecutive chapters or verses are given, this area is marked with a bis-dash , also without the use of spaces (e.g. Joh 1,1-18 or Gal 1,6-2,10 ). It is also common to use the abbreviation f. or ff. to append if reference is to be made to one or more of the following verses or chapters ( Mt 3 f ., 1 Thess 1,2 f. or Joh 1,1 ff. ).

Examples

  • Indication of a biblical book: 2 Tim (also: 2Tim ), Matthäus
  • Indication of a chapter: Neh 11 , 1 Corinthians 3 (also 1Cor 3 )
  • Several chapters are given: Jos 13; 15 , Jos 9-15 , Hebrews 10f. , Heb 8-10
  • Indication of a verse: Joh 3,12 , 2 Samuel 3,1 (also: 2Sam 3,1 )
  • Indication of several verses: Ps 42,2.5 , 1 Cor 1,8.9 (also: 1 Cor 1,8f. ), Ez 13,1–16 , Amos 8,1–3

Inconsistent verse information

Most verse references uniquely identify a Bible verse, regardless of the language and translation used and of the confessional tradition. In some cases, however, the information for a particular Bible verse will differ. This is particularly important when quoting or translating texts with references to biblical references that come from another cultural area; then this information should be adapted for the target audience if necessary.

The following deviations apply to the Old Testament . The Protestant translations in countries with a Lutheran or Reformed tradition such as Germany, the Nordic countries, Switzerland and France (where the translation by the Swiss Louis Segond plays a predominant role) as well as modern Catholic editions that are no longer translated from the Vulgate as they were in the past (such as the German standard translation or the English New American Bible ), agree in the division of chapters and verses with the Masoretic text . This means that the most common German translations ( Luther , standard translation , Good News Bible ) have the same classification. If text passages are mentioned in the following, then according to this chapter and verse division.

  1. The most important difference is the different ways in which the Psalms are counted .
  2. In some editions of the Bible, the headings of the Psalms from the Hebrew original text are missing (e.g. Ps 51 : 1-2  EU ) or they are placed in front of the text of the Psalm without a verse number. The following verses in 62 of the Psalms are numbered 1 - rarely 2 - smaller.
  3. In many places chapter boundaries are shifted by one or two verses, so that the last verse of a chapter becomes the first of the next chapter in other editions or vice versa, which shifts the following verse numbers accordingly. If you do not find a quoted verse in the specified place, it always makes sense to also search the surrounding verses.
  4. In several places there are major deviations in the Vulgate : There the chapter beginnings Num 17: 1–15, 1 Kings 5: 1–14 and Ez 21: 1–5 each form the end of the previous chapter, whereby the following verse numbers are reduced; conversely, the chapter ends form Ex 7.26-29, Lev 5.20-26, 1Chr 5.27-41, Neh 3.33-38, Job 40.25-32, Dan 3.31-33 and Mal 3.19 -24 the beginning of the following chapter, which increases the verse numbers there.
  5. Similarly, the entire chapter Joel 3 in the Vulgate forms the end of chapter 2. This text is quoted in the Acts of the Apostles ( Acts 2: 17-21  EU ) and, as a result, often in Christian secondary literature.
  6. The Septuagint inserts the chapters Jeremiah 46–51 after the middle of Jeremiah 25, which shifts the chapter numbers from then on (see table in the article Jeremiah ). But there are hardly any modern translations that do this.
  7. Among the deutero- canonical texts there are those which form additions to the canonical books Esther and Daniel , e.g. B. 67 according to Dan 3,23 inserted verses, whereby the verse numbers from 24 onwards can refer to the canonical text or the inserted deutero-canonical. Quotations of such texts will usually contain sufficient information as to how they are meant.

Older Catholic translations like the Vulgate have the deviations according to (1), (4) and (5), the Septuagint those according to (1) and (6) and a small part of those according to (4). Bibles from the Orthodox world have similar deviations. The deviations (2), (4) and (5), but not (1), are typical of most Protestant English-language Bibles, particularly the King James Bible ; they are also found in other-language Bibles whose translators are shaped by this tradition. In specific individual cases, the chapter and verse information must always be verified by text comparison.

See also

literature

  • Hellmut Haug: On the deviating chapter and verse counting in the Old Testament. A find from the estate of Eberhard Nestle. In: Journal of Old Testament Science. Vol. 113, Issue 4, December 2001, ISSN (Online) 1613-0103, pp. 618-623 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  • James Strong: The new Strong's exhaustive concordance of the Bible . Nelson, Nashville et al. a. 1990, ISBN 0-8407-6750-1 , Places where the Hebrew and the English Bibles differ in the division of chapters and verses (English).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ GF Moore: The Vulgate Chapters and Numbered Verses in the Hebrew Bible , Journal of Biblical Literature 1893, pp. 74-76.